Sociological interest in Salford

Contemporary Salford is a city of about 220,000 people in the north west of England. It adjoins the city of Manchester (divided from it by the River Irwell) and is part of the Greater Manchester conurbation. Its status as a city was conferred in 1926, but it has a much longer history as an independent borough: it was granted a Charter in 1230. In fact it predates Manchester, and like it, Salford grew rapidly during the Industrial Revolution of the late Eighteenth/early Nineteenth centuries. It was thus an integral part of the first industrial city in the world [see Asa Brigg’s Victorian Cities, 1968, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth). Like its now larger, and more renowned twin city Manchester, its economy was linked with engineering, manufacturing, coal-mining and the textile industries. Salford Docks (now renamed ‘The Quays’) was an important terminus for the Manchester Ship Canal (opened in 1894) linking northern England with trans-Atlantic and international trade. The city of Salford covers an area of 37 square miles and contains pockets of prosperity as well as areas of environmental degradation and social deprivation. Since the 1980s, numerous programmes of private and public investment have been channelled into urban regeneration. Salford Quays now contains luxury apartments, upmarket hotels and houses, and the increasingly famous Lowry Arts Centre. Further transformation includes MediaCityUK, home to the University of Salford and the BBC.

Salford has been a site for social research—as well as cultural and political action—for a very long time. Thanks to Manchester Statistical Society—the first of its kind in England, founded in 1833 by, among others, Benjamin Haywood, a Salford banker—some of the earliest empirical social research in Britain was undertaken in Salford. Rapid industrialisation in the Nineteenth Century and the first half of the Twentieth Century, followed by deindustrialisation and the ongoing reconstruction of Salford and Manchester into post-industrial cities, has ensured that Salford has consistently interested researchers working in many social science disciplines. The number of those who have studied Salford is too large to cover in this brief overview, [link to Salford Bibliography] but there are some important figures whose work has had more than local significance.

Benjamin Franklin, the famous American scientist, visited Salford in 1771 to study the progress of the industrial revolution; he travelled along the Bridgewater canal to visit the coal-mine at Worsley, Salford, and studied death rates in the local area. Franklin then wrote about this in his journal and papers [see W. Isaacson (2003) Benjamin Franklin, Simon & Schuster, London]. Alexis de Tocqueville also visited Salford (and Manchester) in June 1835, investigated social conditions, met with notable social reformers, and gathered what was described as a ‘harvest’ of statistics [see M. Drolet (2005) ‘Tocqueville’s interest in the social’, History of European Ideas, 31, 4, 464.]. Yet more famously, Frederick Engels was sent to the family firm in Weaste, Salford, to learn about manufacturing industry and factory management. He collected extensive data about Salford in the early 1840s, which formed the basis of his book The Condition of the Working Class in England (first published in 1845). Engels included a detailed account of Salford, and noted that: ‘Salford, once more important than Manchester, was then the leading town of the surrounding district to which it still gives its name…’ but ‘an old and therefore very unwholesome, dirty and ruinous locality is to be found here’ (Engels, 1969 edition, 95).

This sense of deprivation, poverty, and social polarisation was probably the dominant image associated with Salford from the Nineteenth Century onwards and persisted until the end of the Twentieth Century. This was reflected in many of the novels, plays and films based on Salford [link to Salford as a Site of Cultural Significance]. Robert Roberts’ book The Classic Slum (1971, Penguin, Harmondsworth) provided a graphic depiction of poverty at the beginning of the Twentieth Century and its local impact. Peter Townsend, in his landmark study Poverty in the UK (1979, Penguin, Harmondsworth), supplied one of the most detailed sociological accounts of poverty and included Salford as one of the four case-study fieldwork sites. Townsend studied ‘Salford East,’ for which on most economic and social indicators of poverty, Salford stood out.

This aspect of Salford—its long term association with multiple deprivation and poor health, de-industrialisation, and apparently higher-than-average crime rates—has meant that in recent decades many central and local government studies and reports have been carried out in the area. Academic social researchers from disciplines other than sociology, including political scientists, criminologists, geographers, and health service analysts, have also focused on Salford, although many of the published studies do not name the city or its localities for ethical reasons. There is an extensive archive of local history studies on virtually every imaginable aspect of life in Salford, especially regarding economic conditions, social reform, trade unions and political radicalism.

Sociologists based at Salford University have carried out many research projects in and about the city, but again, some of them do not identify Salford explicitly. Among the most recent, we can highlight a few that feature Salford. Steve Edgell and Vic Duke’s book A Measure of Thatcherism (1991) examined the social and political impact of the public spending cuts on different social classes during the 1980s. Sandra Walklate and Karen Evans carried out several projects about crime in Salford that culminated in a book entitled Zero Tolerance or Community Tolerance? (1999). While it was not specifically about Salford, Ian Taylor, Karen Evans, and Penny Fraser’s book A Tale of Two Cities: Global Change, Local Feeling and Everyday Life in the North of England (1996) discussed similar processes to those occurring in Salford, and their experience in Salford undoubtedly informed their analysis.

Currently, criminologists and sociologists at Salford are continuing this long tradition of social inquiry on a wide range of topics in Salford. Whether it is about indebtedness and community finance, coronary heart disease and use of the internet, neighbourhoods and community arts ventures, or local policing, or the effects of the digital revolution on local cultures, and innumerable other subjects, Salford will continue to provide a rich source for sociological investigation.

Rob Flynn